Did you follow April the giraffe through her long final weeks of pregnancy and watch her birth? There's so much that we can learn and apply to human birth from April's birth (here's the video, with sound). Birth is innately an instinctive primal wild event, but like this situation, most human mamas birth in "captivity" these days (the hospital). As April shows us, it is still possible to have a beautiful birth in that setting, given a few conditions.

#1, #1, #1. PATIENCE! How many humans in April's place would have been induced way before the baby was ready to be born? And then during the delivery itself, how many would have had interventions such as pulling the baby out. Slow birth (as long as there are some signs of progress) can be wonderful and safe. So many moms are focused on having fast labors these days, but they don't understand that often fast labors can be much more intense. Be patient and trust the process even when it stretches beyond your comfort zone timeline (as long as there are no signs of distress obviously).

#2. The keepers in this video are guarding the birth space, not taking over the atmosphere. Notice how quiet the keepers are (and how few of them are present--they easily could have had 30 people in there, but they realized that would not be conducive to labor progress (if you wonder why, look up the Sphincter Law)). No loud chit chat about what they ate for breakfast or April's "failure to progress" when just the legs hung out for quite a while. By their silence, they allowed April's birth hormones to flow and not shut down. Yet they were present so if there was truly a problem, they could step in and quickly help. When human moms are in labor, they also need (it's a NEED) a quiet, peaceful labor space in order to focus on birthing and tapping into their intuition as far as how to cope with labor. When we do a lot of talking in the birth room, asking mom questions, remarking on her progress, discomfort, etc. it pulls a mom into her neocortex (the thinking, decision-making part of the brain) and out of the primal, instinctual part of the brain ("the zone") where she really needs to be in labor.

#3. Yes, most moms (giraffe or human) poop in labor sometimes. Don't hold back because you're afraid of that. Your birth team has seen it all before.

#4. Notice April's involvement with the whole delivery process--constantly licking her baby off during delivery, looking at the baby and seeing how much was out, etc. If nobody was observing you in labor (I'm not suggesting that, just asking the question to get moms connected with their instinctual side), would you be less squeamish about involvement in the delivery? Would you touch your baby's head as it comes down the birth canal? Would you stimulate yourself with your hands to feel pleasure during birth (which increases oxytocin and helps dilation and blood flow to the perineum)? Would you keep your hand there to feel exactly how much you need to push and to help you guide your baby's head into the world slowly?​So we see that ultimately, our bodies in 21st century hospitals know how to birth as well as a giraffe in captivity does. Do you trust your body as much as everyone trusted April's and didn't step in to fix a process that wasn't broken? What additional lessons have you drawn from watching April in relation to human birth?Love,Melanie

Melanie Ellison, Durango CO

Childbirth fascinates me, and I always love learning more tidbits about it and sharing them with you. I also post photo galleries here from my photoshoots. Sign up for the RSS feed below so you don't miss a post!